Mr. Lee acknowledged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was making an effort to foster global ties but said more needs to be done for the country to grow its presence beyond South Asia.

“Mr. Modi has been in Beijing and Chinese leader have been in India and you are big trading partners,” he said.

“This is a positive sign. And they are not seeing this as a takeover by a rival but as interdependence.”

Singapore is the second-largest investor in India, contributing 16% of the South Asian nation’s total foreign direct investment. India received US$43.2 billion in FDI from Singapore between April 2000 and December 2015.

Mr. Lee said India should pursue its interest beyond the sub-continent not just by joining trade alliances but also by leading the way on climate change.

“You foreign service for example is smaller than it ought to be,” he noted. “You should pursue your interest more vigorously and actively beyond the Indian subcontinent and beyond the Indian ocean. You should be a game changing country,” he said.

He said some people in India think the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free trade pact between 12 countries including the U.S., is a kind of “exclusionary trade bloc.” He said India should be open to joining multilateral trade pacts.

“I hope Indian companies will go back and lobby the Indian government and tell them that they welcome the integration and are prepared for competition and that’s take this more ambitiously,” he said.

easier said than done. #1 question should be how can it balloon to 1.3 billion population with 54% below age 25??=== where was population control policy? national education on birth control........ every economist knows the statistic=higher the birth rate, the poorer is the economy. crescendo birth rate from west/developed to underdeveloped countries. true, u don't want population over aged in demographics, but 0.7 billion under age 25?? if trend continues, what it will be like 15 yrs from now??can it be 70% of 2 billion below age 40.